A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 06 eBook

vessels, and acquired great plunder, and destroyed
a vessel of great size, richly adorned, and containing
several splendid apartments like a palace, all covered
with gold and ivory, which the king kept as a pleasure-yacht
for his own use. Exasperated against Gonzalez
for his treachery, the king ordered the nephew of
that lawless ruffian, who was in his power as a hostage,
to be be impaled. But Gonzalez, being a person
utterly devoid of honour, cared not at whose cost
he advanced his own interests; yet the guilt of so
many villanies began to prey upon his conscience, and
he became apprehensive of some heavy punishment falling
upon him, which he had little means to avert, as all
men considered him a traitor unworthy of favour; those
of Aracan, because he had betrayed them to the Moguls;
and the Moguls, because he had been false to those
that trusted him. He afterwards met his just
reward under the government of Don Jerom de Azevedo[431].

[Footnote 429: Perhaps the island now called
Balonga on the coast of Aracan.—­E.]

[Footnote 430: Probably a desert or uninhabited
island among the Sunderbunds, in the Delta of the
Ganges. Indeed the whole geography of this singular
story is obscure, owing to the prodigious change in
dominion and names that have since taken place in this
part of India.—­E.]

[Footnote 431: Owing to the want of interest
in the transactions of these times, as related in
the Portuguese Asia, and the confused arrangement
of De Faria, we have in this place thrown together
the principal incidents in the extraordinary rise
of these two successful adventurers, Nicote and Gonzalez,
leaving their fate to be mentioned in the succeeding
section.—­E.]

The Hollanders, becoming powerful at the Molucca islands,
and forming an alliance with these islanders, who
were weary of the avarice and tyranny of the Portuguese,
expelled them from Amboyna and established themselves
at Ternate, whence the Portuguese had been formerly
expelled by the natives. By the aid of the king
of Ternate, the Hollanders likewise, about 1604, got
possession of the fort of Tidore, whence about 400
Portuguese were permitted to retire by sea to the Phillipine
islands, where they were hospitably received by Don
Pedro de Cunna, who commanded there for the Spaniards.
In February 1605, Cunna sailed from the Philippines
with 1000 Spanish and 400 native troops, and recovered
the fort of Ternate, chiefly owing to the bravery
of Joam Rodriguez Camelo, who commanded a company
of Portuguese in this expedition. De Cunna thence
proceeded for Tidore, which he likewise reduced, by
which conquest the Molucca islands became subject
to Spain.